Spy vs The ghost: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Espionage, Intelligence officers, United States, True Crime, Biography & Memoir
Spy
“Disaster. Inside the Soviet counterintelligence section at FBI headquarters in Washington, there could be no other word for what had happened: the two KGB agents who were the bureaus's highly secret sources inside the Soviet embassy in Washington had somehow been discovered.”
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Spy tells, for the first time, the full, authoritative story of how FBI agent Robert Hanssen, code name grayday, spied for Russia for twenty-two years in what has been called the "worst intelligence disaster in U.S.…
The ghost
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CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton was one of the most powerful unelected officials in the United States government in the mid-20th century, a ghost of American power. From World War II to the Cold War, Angleton…
Side by side
The verdict
- Readers rate Spy highest: Spy 4.3 · The ghost 3.9.
- The ghost has the widest readership — 1254 ratings behind its score.
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Scores by source
| Spy | The ghost | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 4.0 (1254) |
| Hardcover | 4.0 (1) | 3.8 (6) |
| Google Books | 5.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (80) | 4.0 (37) |
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Reception
| Spy | The ghost | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 80 | 1254 |
| Editions | 5 | 6 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | — | 3677 |
| Reading it now | — | 495 |
| Written reviews | — | 115 |
| Wikipedia attention | 19109 | 2935 |
| Pages | 320 | 336 |
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Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: Spy or The ghost?
Spy has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Spy 4.3/5, The ghost 3.9/5).
Which is shorter to read: Spy or The ghost?
Spy is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: Spy (320 pages, ≈ 5 h 56 m); The ghost (336 pages, ≈ 6 h 13 m).
Which is harder to read: Spy or The ghost?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — Spy: Moderate; The ghost: Moderate.